The first bried we were given for branding in our second semester was to design a poster to represent the course that we are on which is BA[Hons] Graphic Communication at Wolverhampton University.
The idea was to represent both the course and the university as a whole to try and encourage potential students to chose Wolverhampton over other uni's.
The following four images are close ups of my initial brain storm focusing on what the poster needs to focus on and some possible design approaches that could be taken.
These images are of the second brainstorm I created at the start of the project. This particular brainstorm was focused more on the brand values the course holds.
Things about what makes the course at Wolverhampton better or stand out more that other places.
These are the type of assets I would need to put across through the imagery and strapline for the poster.
Below are pages from my flipfile that I used to gather research and generate initial ideas.
This is the overall view of my first research sheet and further on I have focused on the annotation of the page.
These posters caught my eye because they are a set but yet each one is very different. I likes the illustrations and the variation in the bright colours on each one. These designs inspired me to try and create a graphic course version. One issue I found with this idea was that University of Wolverhampton or even Graphic Communication are very long and wouldnt fit the same way the title of 11 does.
The image below is of a poster I found whilst researching in a book called Poster-Art by Charlotte Rivers.
This poster was greated by a UK based design group called Laki and I chose to include it in my work because i found the use of tiling old magazine covers for the magazine AURA worked quite effectively. This poster also relates to the brief because there isnt any use of colour which is one of our requirements, to make a greyscale poster.
Again here I am showing another research page. I have included the grey scale poster because I like the way the image was masked through the text, although it is easy to make out the letter forms it is also really easy to make out the image behind it aswel.
The second poster on this page was used to advertise a film. I liked the use of illustration and hand rendered typography, I thought this style related well to what sort of things a student can be expected to produce if they were to chose Wolverhampton.
There is a lot of annotation on this following image. The why not poster was included because I liked the energy it gave off from the colours and the shapes that were chosen to help generate the question mark. Another point I made in my annotation about that particular poster was the way the "why not" has been cropped slightly to create a dynamic allignment with the infomations about the cause.
The Muller-Brockman poster of the lady holding her ears was particularly interesting to me cause of how the impact of the poster is given through the image and we dont even have to know what the text says to understand it. Another thing I liked about that poster was the angle the text had been layed to follow the direction of the womans face.
These two posters were created as a pair and I have included them in my research because I liked the young and fun feeling both the colours and the shapes give off. The wording of these posters are very casual and humerous aswel so I thought that if I were to take the same approach with my course poster it may stand out to the younger generation more because it is more on their level.
This is the final page of my research, these three posters have a more military approach to them. I have used them because I feel they are very persuasive. On the bottom two of these posters I like the lines and shapes that the designers have used, I could recreate a similar design with angles that the building and corridors create aroung the university.
With designs I started off by putting my own twist on some of the posters I had seen and making them relate to the course and the brand values of the university.
this is a close up of the images that i generated on the above page. On the top image I was thinking about using a very text heavy design and using text as image. The idea of crossing lines was to show the idea of paths your journey in life can take when you take a university course like this one.
The second design was inspired by Jan Tschichold and i was thinking about visualising a number of different elements of the university coming off the logo.
For this page of ideas I have taken the photo of each half. The urban design poster was another that I found whilst researching that I didnt include before. It reminded me of the Gunter Grass poster with the image being masked through the text, this poster used a similar idea but alternated the design on each word.
These are a few of the images I took to help develop this initial idea. I wanted to include students at work in some way in my poster design to show views how easy going it is on the course and how readily available equipement is to student.
This is the second side to that particular design sheet which shows how my idea developed on screen. I've also talkes about the use of font. this particuar design isnt complete because it is missing the university address and contact details.
this is another page where I have focused on developement of an idea, this is the first half of the page where I have shown the poster that has inspired me and I have then changed this to suit my idea. The problem with this design I feel is that it is far too similar to the research and doesnt feel like my own work.
Around the third floor which is home to the graphics course there are very neutral white brick walls. this is so that work from students can go on display without being over shadowed by the corridor decoration so I have used this in the background of this poster to give it more texture and depth.
Whilst st uni I was walking around the third floor between rooms and noticed that the lights cast a strange reflection onto the glossy black floor. This gave me an idea for a poster to promote the course.
I took a photo of the reflection there and then because I thought it resembles a road. The idea I got from this was that life is a journey which is associated with roads, this gave me the strap line "the creative road to success"
Below is the design sheet and the poster that I created from this image.
Here is my computer generated version of this particular design. Although I think the poster works well as a poster I dont think the concept comes together to give the message of a design course and I think this is a crusial part of this brief.
After a range of different ideas I have decided to develop one of my very first concepts where there are lines overlapping to create the idea of paths that are created by joining the course.
This was my first idea but this time I have altered the title to relate more to the design aspect and creative side of the course. I have initially gone for create your future and join BA[Hons] Graphic Communication.
After I had created the poster which included the corridor I made a connection between the idea of paths crossing and the idea of a creative road to success so on this sketch I have switched out one of the lines and have replaced it with the floor of the uni corridor.
I have then developed the previous sketch so that the design is more visually appealing and the structure flows better. From here I can get the design onto photoshop and begin adding in imagery and modifying the allignments on the design.
This is how the design looked once I had gotten it onto screen. As you can see I have inserted the image of the corridor floor and I have also masked the image of the brick walls of the corridor through create your future.
I have also alligned the course name with the angle of the corridor image.
On this version I have looked to see what the poster would look like with out the masked through wall and I have also inserted an image of some students in a lecture that I had taken. I think this approach could work well if I decide to fill the other spaced with images associated with the course also.
Because I was finding it difficult to place the university logo and adress I decided to scrap the use of the and sign and use the word instead which allowed my to place the corridor image at any angle i wanted. I also found it pretty difficult to read the uni information when it was placed over an image so i have used a second corridor to create a blank section. Another thing I have altered on this design other than including an image of the building is to add "be inspired" to the strap line. I think this now related to how the course is very close knit and that inspiration seeps out of current students.
And this is the final poster that I have decided on. I chose to add a close up image of a cutting mat from the uni base room to add more texture and tone to the whole piece. I blurred out the image of the students slightly so that it isnt recognisable to who it could be which almost says "this could be you" and I placed this image next to a very crisp image of the front of the art and design building itself. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of this brief and feel that this poster would help to encourage more young people to join the graphics course.
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